All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 150: Paladin of Spot

Bee slowly regained consciousness. She felt groggy like she had just awoken from a long nap, even though it must have only been a few moments after she passed out. The energy the ritual had taken from her was a lot more potent than she had expected. Her head pounded with a constant insistence that she not move or open her eyes. Ignoring her body's warnings, she looked around anyway.

Light seared into the front of her brain as it tried to process the inputs. She had to close her lids for a second to stabilize herself before trying again. Things were slightly blurry, but she was starting to be able to make shapes out. Blinking a few more times, she realized that she was watching Tony and the lesser demon go at it.

Race: Demon, Type: Lesser Demon, Level: 12, Strong stat: Strength, Weak Stat: Wisdom

As she watched, she realized that a lot of their plans were going to have to change. Despite the creature being several levels below Tony, they were evenly matched. And that was with him taking full advantage of the demon's imprisonment. They were going to have to find an easier way to help people level up. It was a pity that there weren't any more skeletons down in the catacombs for them to fight. Her first few fights may have been against these, but the skeletons were when she really came into her own.

Unlike demons, undead required a dead body to form, so she wasn't about to get any more skeletons anytime soon. At least, she hoped not. If they had just left them alone, they might have put themselves back together, but Void had consumed all of them.

Well, the lesser demons weren't her first fight either… technically that had been with the imp. It wasn't exactly a memory she looked on fondly, but she wasn't in the greatest headspace at the time, so it wasn't exactly representative. Of course, she wasn't about to break the expensive lighting of the castle just to get people training. Still, maybe starting with a lesser demon was reaching a bit too far.

Maybe she could summon more imps? Ash imps were a bit more dangerous, and she didn't want to risk burning the castle down, but some other kind of imp maybe… Even the children might be able to face a grass imp as a team… And the adults could get some practice against the more powerful variations before they tried against lesser demons again.

Tony finally landed a good blow, piercing the demon in the stomach right under its rib cage. Levering herself back upright, Bee inspected the circle for any imperfections. Scaling it up from the recommended size for there to be enough room for a fight had likely been the cause of the increased power draw. She might have to actually change the composition of the circle in the future. Experimenting like this for her very first demon summoning probably wasn't her best idea.

Maybe with a little more practice, she would be able to do it more easily. Still, it would take a while. It was a good thing they started this process now, or else they would have really been in trouble with getting those demon parts.

Tony was holding the broom by the bristles, leaning on it heavily. The blade was pierced through the demon, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed viciously, but the weight of Tony was just too much. Slowing, it eventually stilled. Once Tony gave her a thumbs-up with a tired smile, she stood and walked over.

"How was that?" Bee asked.

"A lot harder than I was expecting. I can't believe you were fighting these before level ten." Tony sounded tired, but soon enough, he brightened. "But hey, it pushed me over the edge to level 25!"

"Contrats," Bee said, reaching up to smack his shoulder. "What did you get?"

"Two options, priest and paladin," Tony said.

"That is what I got too. The third option was Heretic. I suppose if you switch to the devotee of spot class you won't get that option." Bee said. "Which one are you going to go with?"

"Probably Paladin of Spot. I'm just not the priest type." Tony said. "Reading just isn't as fun as you made it out to be."

"Well, if you're a paladin then you need to get better at hitting things."

"Yeah, I think the broom just isn't for me. Maybe I can find a nice warhammer and a shield." Tony said.

Bee just nodded; they would figure it out later. For now, they turned to face the audience by the door. Most of the adults were there, even if the children technically hadn't been allowed to watch.

---

As Beatrice and Tony talked with Susan and her recruits, I busied myself with cleaning up after the summoning. I moved the demon's body onto a canvas sheet we had prepared for this exact purpose earlier. Later we would move it to one of the labs where Beatrice and Marnada would harvest it for parts. Beyond that, there were still all the lines of salt to sweep up.

As I traced the intricate lines of the circles of powder, I remembered when I first came to this world. I, too, was surrounded by symbols with an 81% similarity profile to these. I wondered why?

I had been sent here to practice my cleaning. Perhaps the demons were sent to make messes? No, that didn't make sense. The only messes humans seemed to be okay with were the ones they made themselves. Though I wouldn't have put it past the old inhabitants of this castle to be so shortsighted. Plus, Beatrice had much better reasons for this summoning.

Maybe there was some similarity in the transport mechanism rather than the motivation? I had never seen a demon in my comfortable house before, though, so we certainly weren't coming from the same place. I would have to think about this later.

Either way, it was a good thing that my humans sent me here to clean up. I have gotten a lot better at it since then.

Consuming the salt gave me an excellent chance to analyze the substance. It was no longer just salt. Inside the crystalline lattice, strange energies wove and pulsed in complex patterns. I wasn't able to tell what exactly they were doing, but it seemed oddly familiar. It was impossible to tell exactly, but it reminded me of a lot of the debris I consumed during my first days in the castle. I had long since converted that to pure energy to give myself boosts when I needed it, but I remembered that sitting in my dustbin for some time.

Checking what was in there, I noticed I had completely forgotten about the two humans in the timeout I had put in there weeks ago. I should probably check on them. I wondered if the magic I had just introduced to their surroundings had any effects. I ran over them with my sensors, and they seemed alright. The patches I had made for them to replace their missing parts seemed to be working just fine.

But with them in stasis like now, it was impossible to really give them a full checkup. I also wanted to make sure I could get them back out without issues. With that in mind, I popped one of them out. I could tell its heart was beating. Its replacement parts were also suitably attached, even with full gravity. But… why wasn't it moving? Shouldn't it be looking around, at least?

A scream rang out from the hall behind me. I quickly pulled the human back into my dustbin and turned to confront the threat.

One of the younger women was pointing in my direction with her mouth open; everyone else was still in the process of turning to look. They stared at me for a moment, then stared at the woman in confusion. "Something…something was there! I swear!"

She appeared flustered at this point. Whether it was because of what she saw or because everyone was still staring at her, I wasn't sure. Still, she doubled down. "I mean it! It was just for a second, but I swear I'm not seeing things!"

"What was it?" One of the other women asked.

"It…" She shuddered. "It was this weird crystal monster. It looked a bit like a human, but… but it had no face."

Huh, she was right. I hadn't noticed it at first, but it did seem that the human was missing a face. Taking another scan of him in my dustbin, I noticed that it was now a smooth crystal. How did that get there? Looking over the rest of him, it seemed that most of his body was coated in crystal. Interesting. Everything appeared fine to a basic scan; blood was flowing, and brain cells were firing too. All that important stuff for humans.

Just a few more things than I had expected had been replaced with spare parts. Maybe he had taken inspiration from the ones I made? Checking the other one, I noticed the same thing. The visual match of what they had looked like before to how they appeared now was about 99.8%, excluding the face. In fact, the only thing that really gave it away was the crystal was a little too perfect to be the skin it was matching. Just too smooth and too symmetrical. Odd. I wasn't sure what could be causing that.

It seemed the humans had calmed down a bit, even if they all seemed a little nervous. I trundled over to them to beep reassurance, and they seemed to settle down.

Beatrice addressed the group. "Okay, back to the topic at hand. This could have gone better, I think we will try again, but maybe with an imp. If we can get this method down though, we can make sure that our troops have real combat experience. Also, we can make sure that everyone gets classes when they are ready."

One of the mothers seemed a bit nervous, but she spoke up after a few minutes of deliberation. "If you're talking about the children… don't they seem a little young for that? I know you got your class at an early age and have been fighting for a while, but… can't we just let them be kids?"

Beatrice cocked her head and seemed to think for a bit. I wasn't sure what the woman was going on about; I had heard the humans talk about classes, but it never seemed relevant. "I did say when they were ready. But they are already training every morning and evening. They might be tougher than you think. Still, we'll try not to push them too hard. Maybe we'll give it a few years, who knows. I suppose it's up to Void."

Suddenly everyone was looking at me. I wasn't sure how to respond. What was up to me? To just give them an answer, I just told them we would see.

This seemed to suffice as they went back to their conversation.

****

As everyone left the great hall, the Bee was already planning her next attempt at summoning. She would go with Tony as the combatant at least one more time against some sort of imp. She wasn't sure what kind yet, but one of the more basic ones definitely. That shouldn't be a problem for him since he had defeated a lesser demon. But after that, she would try some of Susan's recruits.

If they worked just fine, then it was going to be a simple matter of just upping them in difficulty until they were at the lesser demons. They weren't in such need of materials now that they could waste Tony's time by having him fight constantly.

The biggest concern, honestly, was making a circle large enough for a team to fight in rather than just a single combatant. She would need to look up more efficient ways of doing it. Maybe she could even consider designing her own circle or something like that.

Bee also reconsidered using the grand hall for this. If they did some rearranging, some of the other rooms that the demons were stored in had engraved circles. Perhaps something like that would prevent the circle from being scuffed in the midst of battle. Still, that wouldn't really fix her energy problem. Maybe she'd have to talk to her master about that, and it would have some ideas.

She turned to put away all her stuff and clean up, but she should have known better. Void was sitting behind her, the floor sparkling clean.